Category Archives: Week in Review

 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

FEBRUARY 15 – 19, 2016

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO	NEW STO	ROLLOVERS	CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED	CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED	CLOSED	EX-DIVIDEND
0  /  0	0	2	1   /   0	1   /   0	0	1

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

February 15 – 19,  2016

Alright, last week and the week before and the week before that, it was all about oil.

How about this week? Well, it was the same as last week. Oil, oil, oil and maybe a little bit of interest rates, interest rates, interest rates and negative interest rates, too.

Unbelievably, there was actually the first assignment of the year following one of those rare 2016 newly opened positions.

For all of the excitement this week and the two very strong days to start the week, there were no new purchases.

During the week the S&P 500 was 2.8% higher and that was good enough.

The single new assignment matched the performance of the S&P 500 during its holding period, so there was no particular advantage to having had made the trade, but it felt good to finally get one done.

This turned out to be a good week, but no so much for the performance relative to the S&P 500 but rather due to the ability to get some rollovers done and to actually live long enough to have seen an assignment.

Otherwise, it was a lonely week of just sitting and watching.

Much of that was done in the hopes that Thursday and Friday would end up being the same as Tuesday and Wednesday and maybe propel the market even higher.

But deep down I really wanted to see some stability come in after those two really large gains to start the week.

We’ve seen far too many really big moves in both directions and while that’s good for the volatility induced premiums that can be had, it creates a real sense of concern for the bottom falling out. The large moves higher are like an open invitation to take profits and what is really needed now is an open invitation to invest in the future and not relish in the past.

I think that ending the week on a flat note is probably a much more healthy thing than if we had gone higher and higher.

That would only make me think of how much another fall would hurt.

For next week, with a little bit of cash coming from that single assignment, I might be more inclined to want to add some new positions, but especially if the market opens with some weakness to start the week.

I probably wouldn’t be enthused with a strong decline, but wouldn’t mind a mild move lower or just a mild move higher.

I felt happy being able to get a couple of rollovers this week, even if having to go longer term on the expirations, though.

It was nice to finally generate some additional income, particularly as this week had only a single ex-dividend position and next week has none.

I don’t expect that next week will be a busy one from a personal trading perspective, but I could envision being willing again to dig into some personal funds and effectively lend money to myself to bolster the acsh position in an effort to create some income from what may be under-priced stocks.

For the most part, that had worked well in the latter half of 2015, but I really haven’t felt very assured about doing the same in 2016.

Maybe with a little stability and a little digestion of the recent gains I could find some reason to dip another toe or two to test the waters.

 

.

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  none

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  HPE, UAL

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  none

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: eBay

Calls Expired:  Ford

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions:    AZN (2/17 $0.30)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: none

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBBY, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CSCO,  CY, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, GM, GPS, HAL, HFC, HPQ, INTC, IP, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ, WY (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

FEBRUARY 8 – 12, 2016

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO	NEW STO	ROLLOVERS	CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED	CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED	CLOSED	EX-DIVIDEND
1  /  1	4	0	0   /   0	0   /   0	0	4

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

February 8 – 12,  2016

Alright, last week it was all about oil.

How about this week? Oil, oil, oil and maybe a little bit of interest rates, interest rates, interest rates and negative interest rates, too.

Unbelievably, I actually opened a new position this week.

That new position was 3.4% higher on the week while the adjusted S&P 500 was 0.6% higher and the unadjusted S&P 500 was 0.9% lower.

There were still no assignments for the year as the market continues the back and forth that mostly ends up taking the numbers lower and lower.

But, at least existing positions fared better than the S&P 500 for the week, no doubt with both helped out by Friday’s strong close.

This turned out to be a good week, thanks to Friday’s close.

But it was actually more than that, as Friday’s close just added paper gains.

It was a rare good week because there was actually a new position opened and a number of new call sales were made. On top of that there were a few ex-dividend positions.

Ultimately, i don’t care how it happens, but I just like to see income generated and this week was better than anything else in 2016 to this point.

That isn’t saying much as the market still closed lower on the week and it would have been far, far worse had it not been for another Friday coming to the rescue.

As with other of these strong closes to the week, it’s hard to get overly excited about what may be in store for the following week.

I did spend a little bit of money this week, but I’m under no pretenses that next week will necessarily be more inviting.

What next week does offer is some thought of rollovers after having gone 2 weeks with no expiring positions to even consider.

While there aren’t many for next week either, especially by month closing standards, at least there’s some possibility of rollovers or assignment.

That would be nice, as 2016 hasn’t had much to cheer about and we could all use some good cheer at the moment.

Here’s to next week.

.

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  none

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  GDX ($22.50 6/17/2016), GDX ($25 9/16/2016), NEM ($35 9/16/2016)

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: none

Calls Expired:  none

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions:    BP (2/10 $0.595), IP (2/11 $0.44), MRO (2/12 $0.05), MAT (2/12 $0.38)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week:  AZN (2/17 $0.30)

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBBY, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CSCO,  CY, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, GM, GPS, HAL, HFC, HPQ, INTC, IP, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ, WY (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

FEBRUARY 1 – 5, 2016

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO	NEW STO	ROLLOVERS	CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED	CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED	CLOSED	EX-DIVIDEND
0  /  0	4	0	0   /   0	0   /   0	0	1

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

February 1 – 5,  2016

Oil, oil, oil.

Aren’t you glad I didn’t say oil.

Maybe it’s funnier if you start with “Knock, knock.”

This was just an absolutely horrible week that began with oil leading the market higher and lower, but ended with jobs taking center stage.

Depending on how you like to spin things it was either a good jobs number or a bad one, but for now it looks as if the market can’t make up its mind over what it wants.

Does it want slowed growth and a lesser chance for interest rate hikes or does it want good economic news?

This was another week of not having initiated any new positions and it was another week of being happy to not have done so.

The S&P 500 fell 3.1% on the week, although existing positions ended the week absolutely flat

At least that was good.

It actually wasn’t all that bad of a week as long as you didn’t open any new positions,

The real surprise of the week was the opportunity to actually sell some calls on uncovered positions and to generate some income for a change.

There were absolutely no trades the previous 2 weeks and if not for a number of ex-dividend positions last week, it would have been 2 weeks with no income generation at all.

This week, not only was there finally some option related income, but even an ex-dividend position.

Next week, at least has more ex-dividend positions, but I’m hoping for more opportunity to sell some calls on the many uncovered positions on own.

I am still having a really difficult time justifying any consideration of parting with cash to open any new positions and I don’t see what will change that for next although I am beginning to get more intrigued about the possibility of adding some energy positions.

The recent ups and downs are making them much more appealing as the premiums are getting really, really big.

But, with that, of course, comes the risk.

Somewhere, sometime and somehow the tide will turn and that risk will be rewarded, but there have been so many times in the past year when that seemed to so obviously been the case.

And guess what?

That’s not the way it worked out.

I suppose I can be grateful for this past week’s personal portfolio calm, but there’s absolutely no reason to believe that can be sustained, especially if there’s continued weakness in energy.

As in the past couple of weeks I don’t have any positions expiring this coming week and am not too seriously considering adding anything new, so the few ex-dividend positions may be all there is to look forward to, until the following week and the end of the February 2016 cycle.

That’s not much to look forward to, though.

.

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  none

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  DOW (6/17/16), FAST (5/20/16), MAT (4/15/16)

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: none

Calls Expired:  none

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions:    INTC (2/3 $0.26)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week:  BP (2/10 $0.595)

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBBY, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CSCO,  CY, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, GM, GPS, HAL, HFC, HPQ, INTC, IP, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ, WY (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

JANUARY 25 – 29, 2016

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO	NEW STO	ROLLOVERS	CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED	CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED	CLOSED	EX-DIVIDEND
0  /  0	0	0	0   /   0	1   /   0	0	4

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

January 25 – 9,  2016

Last week it seemed as if the secret to having a gain was to not trade all 5 day in a week.

But maybe the secret is to wait for Thursday and Friday, because for the second week in a row strong gains on both of those days saved the markets from having really, really bad weeks.

For the second week in a row we actually had  consecutive gaining sessions and big ones, at that.

But this was now the second week since early 2009 that I mad absolutely no trades and it was the second consecutive week, at that.

At least this week had a number of ex-dividend positions and much more importantly, overall asset value went nicely higher.

The index itself was nicely higher, showing a 1.8% gain on the week, but you can thank Friday’s gain of 2.5 for all of it and more.

The themes for 2016 are still pretty obvious.

China and especially oil are still big, but there is something old that has become something new for 2016.

And that’s the FOMC and it’s also a case of bad news being thought of as good news, as the market rallied on the seeming belief that there was a slowdown ahead and that interest rates may not be poised to be raised anytime soon.

That, despite the fact that the FOMC didn’t close the door on a March 2016 rate hike and they certainly didn’t say that it was a “one and done” kind of situation.

So what we saw, as the GDP came to a crawl was the market likely reacting to the idea that there wouldn’t be sufficient data to actually raise interest rates.

How is that a good thing?

Bueller, can you tell me? How is that a good thing? Bueller?

It isn’t, but that will be a problem for next week’s market to deal with.

I’m just happy to have some more money on paper than has been the case of late..

It was just good to be able to have kept pace with those last two days and hopefully there will be some more to come and an opportunity to sell some calls on uncovered positions, as I’m still not ready to bet that the bad news is good news feeling is the sort of thing that can sustain a market.

But I’ll take it for now.

.

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  none

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  none

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: none

Calls Expired:  BAC

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions:    F (10/27 $0.15), FAST (1/27 $0.3), KMI (1/28 $0.125)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week:  INTC (2/3 $0.24)

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBBY, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CSCO,  CY, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, GM, GPS, HAL, HFC, HPQ, INTC, IP, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ, WY (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

JANUARY 18 – 22, 2016

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO	NEW STO	ROLLOVERS	CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED	CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED	CLOSED	EX-DIVIDEND
0  /  0	0	0	0   /   0	1   /   0	0	0

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

January 18 – 22,  2016

Maybe the secret to having a gain in 2016 is just not being open to trade all 5 days of a week.

Afer another bad start to the week there was something that we haven’t seen in a long while.

Consecutive gaining sessions and big ones, at that.

But this was the first week since early 2009 that I mad absolutely no trades.

I can’t recall whether there has been a week in the time frame or longer that also didn’t have a single ex-dividend position, either.

But that was this week. Nothing, nothing at all.

The themes for 2016 are pretty obvious.

It’s almost embarrassing just how tightly the market and oil are correlated. While China is a theme, too, there’s no escaping the incredibly tight tandem moves of oil and stocks as they continue to defy their normal relationship.

Oil moves and the market moves in the same direction and has been doing just that for more than a year at this point and yet it still seems so bizarre.

This week, though, for a change, that meant that in the latter half of the week the market went higher. Hard to believe, but the price of oil actually went up on the week,

It might have had gone even higher earlier in the week, but the strong advance by oil, which ha sent the market strongly higher, reversed itself.

You can probably guess what the market did at that point. It gave up its big gain on the day, just as had oil.

There wasn’t much reason to support the nearly 20% gain in the price of a barrel of oil for the week other than the price had been beaten down so much and so fast.

Ultimately, that’s not a very good reason to keep iy going higher, so I’m not expecting too much as next week gets ready to begin and we get back to 5 days of trading.

Still, it was nice to end the week with the S&P 500 moving about 1.6% higher, especially since 2016 had already seen a 10% decline on the year.

Since that 10% decline came during the course of only 11 days of trading, it’s plausible that the entire loss can be offset just as quickly, but what would be the catalyst for supporting that kind of rally?

That’s hard to say, unless earnings can have some kind of meaningful turnaround from where they have been going.

With still very little cash in reserve and absolutely no positions set to expire next week, there are at least some ex-dividend positions.

But I don’t expect to be an active participant when it comes to adding any new positions during the week.

Since it has been a while since a few positive days have been strung together, I’ll have to see the proof before spending any money.

I would definitely much rather, though, see the market continue going higher and get a chance to find any uncovered positions to sell a call upon.

There were a few times this past week that I thought that was going to happen, but it just wasn’t there.

Maybe next week will be different, but it will take a lot of those different kind of weeks to make up for the damage done in just the first 2 weeks of the year.

.

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  none

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  none

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: none

Calls Expired:  BAC

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions:   none

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: F (10/27 $0.15), FAST (1/27 $0.3), KMI (1/28 $0.125(

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBBY, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CSCO,  CY, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, GM, GPS, HAL, HFC, HPQ, INTC, IP, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ, WY (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

JANUARY 11 – 15, 2016

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO	NEW STO	ROLLOVERS	CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED	CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED	CLOSED	EX-DIVIDEND
1  /   1	1	0	0   /   0	10   /  1	0	1

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

January 11 – 15,  2016

Last week I said that It doesn’t get much worse than this past week.

Welcome to this week.

While last week was the worst start ever to a year, now it’s just simply the worst 2 week start to any year.

There was again just one new position opened on the week and that was one position too many, even as it looked as if it may have been a good decision for just a few hours, as had been the case last week..

That position ended the week 4.8% lower while the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500 were both 2.2% lower.

The only shred of good news was that as bad as the week was, the existing positions still fared better than the overall market, but that is rarely any real solace.

Maybe the fact that the second week of the year wasn’t as bad as the first week of the year could also be a shred of good news.

Existing positions under-performed the S&P 500 by 0.4% on the week, adding to the disappointment.

Last week they out-performed, but still finished lower.

A loss is still a loss, even if not a loss in relative terms.

There were no assignments on the week. No surprise, there and none yet for 2016.

The loss for this week was less than it could have been, if not for a partial bounce back on Thursday that brought the S&P 500 almost back to a breakeven for the week, if only for day.

Once again, there was absolutely nothing of virtue to report upon for the week. With lots of expiring positions for the week as the January 2016 option cycle came to its end, there was even less to crow about.

With only one new purchase and 1 ex-dividend position, there was no generation of meaningful income, despite getting a brief opportunity to sell some calls on an uncovered position. Any hope of rollovers was dashed early in the week.

Unlike last week when there was some news that could account for market nervousness, this week had no real news other than the continued and accelerating weakness in the price of oil.

The market has completely embraced an irrational response to what should be good news.

Blackrock’s Larry Fink, who is widely agreed to be a pretty smart guy said what we all should know.

He said that the price of oil is being completely driven by over-supply and not being depressed due to diminished demand.

You can understand why markets wouldn’t like decreased demand, but it’s very hard to understand the reaction to stable or growing demand in the face of decreasing energy prices.

Whatever.

It is a big “whatever” though and at some point the market will be returning to a more rational response.

For next week, with no cash being added to the tiny cash reserve pile, I’m not overly enthused about spending any money.

I dipped my toes in each of the past 2 weeks and can better understand why no one has really been rushing in to buy stocks, even as prices seem ridiculously low.

Next week has only one position set to expire and it’s not too likely that anything good will happen in that regard, so it’s looking like another fallow week.

.

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  BAC

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  M (3/18)

Put contracts expired: TWTR

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: none

Calls Expired:  BAC, BBY, CSCO, CY, DOW, GDX, GM, HFC, INTC, WY

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions:   WFM (1/13 $0.135)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: none

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBBY, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CSCO,  CY, DOW, FAST, FCX, GDX, GM, GPS, HAL, HFC, HPQ, INTC, IP, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ, WY (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

JANUARY 4 – 8, 2016

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO	NEW STO	ROLLOVERS	CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED	CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED	CLOSED	EX-DIVIDEND
1  /   1	0	0	0   /   0	4   /  0	0	2

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

January 4 – 8, 2016

It doesn’t get much worse than this past week.

In fact, if you’re talking about the worst week ever to start a new year, it has nver been worse than this past week.

There was just one new position opened on the week and that was one position too many, even as it looked as if it may have been a good decision for just a few hours.

That position ended the week 6.1% lower while the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500 were both 5.9% lower.

The only shred of good news was that as bad as the week was, the existing positions still fared better than the overall market, but that is rarely any real solace.

Existing positions outperformed the S&P 500 by 1.8%, but that still meant that they were 4.1% lower on the week.

A loss is a loss.

There were no assignments on the week. No surprise, there.

The loss for this week was pretty stunning, especially since so many were of the belief that the flatness of 2015 was bound to translate into a good 2016.

That still may be the case, but the hole dug in the first week of the year is a pretty deep one.

So deep, that no first week of the year has ever witnessed those kind of depths.

There was absolutely nothing of virtue to report upon for the week.

With only one new purchase and 2 ex-dividend positions, there was no generation of meaningful income and any hope of rollovers was dashed by mid-week, as the losses piled on and on.

That leaves us with next week.

That’s the final week of the January 2016 option cycle and things don’t look very optimistic.

With a fair number of positions set to expire next week, I already had my thoughts on early rollovers, but there wasn’t a single moment during the course of the week that offered any opportunity to push your troubles down the line.

With an avalanche of bad news this week it’s not too surprising that our markets swooned.

We were through this barely 6 months ago when China went south and are now back again.

At that time I was expecting that the respite we saw was going to be short lived. I really didn’t expect it to have lasted this long.

Now the question is when we will realize that we are the dog and that the tail shouldn’t be wagging us.

With no assignments this week and with relatively little cash, I don’t expect to be on the lookout for any places to part with my money.

With no sign of relief and selling getting worse and worse as the final day of the week wore on, there’s no reason to think that we’re at the end of the selling and we certainly didn’t see very many people showing their bravery during the course of the week.

Those that did probably have some regrets about having done so.

With today’s drop we’re again 10% below the August high, but we’re also about 9% below the recovery high in November 2015.

Those mental landmarks in charts can either be support or can offer no resistance at all.

Back in August there was no resistance at all and it pretty much came in one big swoop.

This week there were lots of those swoops, but the numbers to be on the lookout for on the S&P 500 are 1913, then 1884 and then 1867.

I’d prefer not to see those get tested and would trade off some of the increased volatility for some price recovery.

.

 

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  MS

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  none

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: none

Calls Expired:  BAC, BBBY, DOW, MS

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions:   CSCO (1/4 $0.21), GPS (1/4 $0.23)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: WFM (1/13 $0.135)

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CY, FAST, FCX, GDX, GPS, HAL, HPQ, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS,  M, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

DECEMBER 28 – 31, 2015

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO	NEW STO	ROLLOVERS	CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED	CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED	CLOSED	EX-DIVIDEND
1  /   1	0	?	1   /   0	1   /  0	0	4

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

December 28 – 31, 2015

This week also ended with a whimper, just like last and it was appropriate for a year that ended on a whimper.

This ended up being a week of mostly passive observation and a few opportunities to trade, but at least one new position was opened for a change.

That single new position was 1.6% higher for the week while the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500 were both 0.2% lower.

It was another week of weakness in energy and materials and that has pretty much been the case for the past 12 months.

There was 1 assignment for the week and they added to the nice performance for closed positions this year. Those 78 closed positions, representing the smallest number in 4 years,  continue to outperform the market. They are an average of 4.6% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been  1.0% higher. That difference represents a 364.8% performance differential, as the average holding period has been climbing to nearly 50 days.

One aspect that I had not been reporting on those closed positions has been their annualized dividend yield, which ended the year at 3.4%, right where 2014 ended and quite a bit better than 2013, reflecting increasing consideration of dividend paying positions over the past 2 years.

The net whimper for this year was really all so illusory, as there were lots of cascading moves that eventually took us nowhere.

The other illusory part of finishing the year unchanged is that it was far, far worse than it all appears, if you only looked at the indexes and not at their components.

2015 was a year that saw far more stocks enter into correction and bear territory than it did see stocks thrive.

The skew was really pronounced and it was a small number of stocks in the DJIA, S&P 500 and NASDAQ, with some obvious overlap, that led the way toward them appearing much better than what was really happening underneath it all.

It would be nice to think that 2016 might return us to something a little more normally distributed.

The possibility of an economy that is truly growing would do wonders to make 2016 a good year. Even though many point to the observation that the year following a flat year is a good one, there are too many times when those expected relationships just didn’t pan out.

I was happy to end this week with at least one assignment and a decent number of ex-dividend positions to go along with the single rollover.

Based upon the past 3 months, I wouldn’t mind seeing fewer new positions opened and more time spent rolling the same names over and over again.

This was a week that continued the strange relationship we’ve seen over the past year between the market and energy prices, even though for a little bit it looked like the market was finally coming to the realization that low input costs is a good thing.

Still, it is good to see 2015 finally done, not that there’s much reason to believe that 2016 will be the antidote that most of us are in need of.

With a handful of positions expiring next week and a few ex-dividend positions, as well, there is at least some potential for income generation, with or without adding any new positions to start the year off.

With an assignment the cash reserve is a lttle higher to begin the year, but the operative word is really “little.”

For now, I just want to be thinking about a few days off and a new start.

Best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year to all.

 

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  DOW

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: DOW

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  none

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: WMT

Calls Expired:  IP

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions:   JOY (12/28 $0.01), CY (12/29 $0.11), DOW (12/29 $0.46), EMC (12/30 $0.12)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: CSCO (1/4 $0.21), GPS (1/4 $0.23)

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CY, FAST, FCX, GDX, GPS, HAL, HPQ, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS,  M, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

DECEMBER 21 – 25, 2015

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO	NEW STO	ROLLOVERS	CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED	CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED	CLOSED	EX-DIVIDEND
0  /   0	2	1	2   /   0	1   /  0	0	0

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

December 21 – 25, 2015

The week ended with a whimper, but it did its best to undo the damage done during the last 2 days of the previous week and to offset some of the very large losses from the week before that.

This ended up being a week of mostly passive observation and a few opportunities to trade, but once again, there were no new positions opened.

The S&P 500 was 2.7% higher for the week. Existing positions were able to beat that performance by 0.2%, perhaps in part due to some strength in the energy sector.

There were 2 assignments for the week and they added to the nice performance for closed positions this year. Those 77 closed positions, representing the smallest number in 4 years,  continue to outperform the market. They are an average of 4.5% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been  1.0% higher. That difference represents a 362.4% performance differential, as the average holding period has been climbing to nearly 50 days.

This was a week that continued the strange relationship we’ve seen over the past year between the market and energy prices.

This week, however, energy prices went higher for a change and the market followed suit.

There wasn’t very much else that could account for the market’s strong performance for the week, except perhaps what economic news was delivered did nothing to create fears that the economy was heating up too much.

So at least there was nothing for traders to worry about in terms of competition from bonds or the increased costs of borrowing.

With the bottom line going up this week, I suppose that’s all that really matters, but it was another week of very little trading.

With no new positions opened for the week and 2 assignments, there will be a little bit more in the cash reserves as the final trading week of the year gets underway on Monday.

It will be another holiday shortened trading week and my guess is that unless I can see reason to add any new positions fairly early in the week, there will either be little reason to do so, or at least reason to look at the following week’s contracts.

With a fair number of contracts set to expire at the end of the option cycle, I may keep an eye on those to see if there are any opportunities to roll those over early to get some better time diversification and just add some more income in the process.

Next week has only 2 positions expiring, but there are a number of ex-dividend positions, so there will at least be some inherent sources of income for the week.

I don’t think that I’ll be looking too aggressively to add new positions and would be very happen to be able to do next week as was the case this past week. I wouldn’t mind being able to sell some calls on other uncovered positions and am increasingly looking at longer term options in order to do so.

Otherwise, like lots of people, I’ll be happy to see 2015 end, at least as markets are concerned. The dichotomy in performance has really been incredible in how few stocks have actually been the basis for the indexes reaching and still being near record levels.

WHile nothing really changes from December 31st to January 2nd, it’s unusual for consecutive years to be very similar. Most people are pointing to the fact that years in which the market was virtually unchanged are typically followed by strong moves higher.

While I like the volatility that accompanies weaker markets, I wouldn’t mind for the market to be stronger as we begin the new year, but I’d love to see that strength more equally distributed and with some rational reasons behind the moves.

That’s not asking too much, but the mall Santa seemed confused when I asked for it under the tree this year.

Merry Christmas and best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year to all.

 

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  none

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  BAC 1/22/16)

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: none

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  none

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  F, HPE

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: COH, DOW

Calls Expired:  M

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions:   none

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: JOY (12/28 $0.01), CY (12/29 $0.11), DOW (12/29 $0.46), EMC (12/30 $0.12)

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CY, FAST, FCX, GDX, GPS, HAL, HPQ, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS,  M, MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.



 

Option to Profit

Week in Review

 

DECEMBER 14 – 18, 2015

 

NEW POSITIONS/STO	NEW STO	ROLLOVERS	CALLS ASSIGNED/PUTS EXPIRED	CALLS EXPIRED/PUTS ASSIGNED	CLOSED	EX-DIVIDEND
1  /   1	0	5	0   /   0	4   /  0	0	2

 

Weekly Up to Date Performance

December 7 – 11, 2015

This was yet another week that was best to be avoided.

What a week to have avoided.

This week was exactly like the one two weeks ago. There were lots of big moves but not too much in the way of a net change on the week.

Following the large loss of last week it would have been nice to have at least made back some of that lost ground.

There was only one new position opened for the week and it was 0.6% lower, compared to the adjusted and unadjusted S&P 500 which were both 0.3% lower.

With no new assignments for the week there are still 75 closed positions for the year and they continue to outperform the market. They are an average of 4.6% higher, while the comparable time adjusted S&P 500 average performance has been  1.0% higher. That difference represents a 358.7% performance differential. 

After a late day rally on Monday and after the response to the FOMC decision and Janet Yellen’s press conference, things were looking pretty good.

The real handwriting on the wall should have been recognized when so many people starting talking about how we were in store for another “rip your face off rally.”

The subsequent sell-offs on Thursday and then even bigger on Friday took the market away from the optimism that began seeing the possibility of a modest gain for the year to one that was again showing a loss on the year.

Finding a reason to account for the deep selling is really hard to do, just as it should have been hard to find a reason for the strong buying in the days ahead of the FOMC, or in the selling of the previous week.

There has been absolutely nothing behind any of these big moves of late, but that’s of no solace to anyone.

This was a pretty awful week, not just because of the sell-offs, but because of the wasted opportunity to take the year out on a positive note.

It was also another week where the net change for the week didn’t do justice toward painting a picture of just how dynamically changing the week had been.

As is often the case, when the monthly cycle is coming to its end, as it did today, I usually have a fair number of positions up for grabs.

This month had a number that had been longer term call sales from earlier in the hope that time would heal the wound of a fallen price, but the wounds have just gotten deeper.

The one positive note is that during the pre-open futures this morning I didn’t believe that there would be any opportunity to get additional rollovers performed.

I had already resigned myself to not getting any assignments for the week, but the idea of not getting the rollovers was especially disappointing, as I do like that income stream.

Somehow, though, there was the chance to roll four positions over today, in addition to the one rollover earlier in the week, so it wasn’t all bad.

Just mostly bad.

Next week is going to be an especially quiet trading week with Christmas on a Friday and probably lots of otherwise occupied people on Thursday, as well.

With no assignments and already low on cash, I don’t expect to be in the market to add any new positions, especvally with the lower premiums that you typically see during holiday shortened weeks.

But who knows?

With 4 positions set to expire next week and no ex-dividend positions, if not opening any new positions, then all hope is going to be placed on doing something with those four.

Even while some of those are still in the game for either assignment or rollover, we’ve continually seen how quickly things can change.

Hopefully the next change will be for the better as the market has suddenly found itself off by about 6% from its August peak and with time running out until the year mercifully comes to an end.

 

This week’s details may be seen in the Weekly Performance spreadsheet * or in the PDF file, as well as in the summary below

(Note: Duplicate mention of positions reflects different priced lots):



New Positions Opened:  DOW

Puts Closed in order to take profits:  none

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the next weekly cycle: DOW

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into extended weekly cycle:  BBBY (1/8/16), WMT (12/31/15)

Calls Rolled over, taking profits, into the monthly cycle: DOW

Calls Rolled Over, taking profits, into a future monthly cycle:  UAL

Calls Rolled Up, taking net profits into same cycle:  none

New STO:  none

Put contracts expired: none

Put contracts rolled over: none

Long term call contracts sold:  none

Calls Assigned: none

Calls Expired:  F, GDX, HPQ, IP

Puts Assigned:  none

Stock positions Closed to take profits:  none

Stock positions Closed to take losses: none

Calls Closed to Take Profits: none

Ex-dividend Positions:   GM (12/16 $0.36), LVS (12/18 $0.65)

Ex-dividend Positions Next Week: none

For the coming week the existing positions have lots that still require the sale of contracts:   AGQ, ANF, AZN, BBY, CHK, CLF, COH, CY, FAST, FCX, GDX, GPS, HAL, JCP, JOY, KMI, KSS, LVS,  MCPIQ, MOS, NEM, RIG, WFM, WLTGQ (See “Weekly Performance” spreadsheet or PDF file)



* If you don’t have a program to read or modify spreadsheets, you can download the OpenOffice Suite at no cost.